Pity the Living
by StormwalkerofLorien
Summary: Effie Trinket goes through a lot when the Capitol take her prisoner. And when she's finally rescued, she's like a broken glass. Small and clear and shattered by force, but step on the wrong piece, and it will be embedded in you for a long time. (One-shot for now, rated for rather mild and completely justified bad language)


_"Do not pity the dead. Pity the living." -Albus Dumbledore _

Her mind told her she could do it. One more year on the chess board. One more year of plastic facades and scrapping up bullshit to force feed the public. One more year of spewing away her sorrows in a pack of expensive cigars until the smoke numbed her brain and she could force herself to forget, if only for one night, the mess her Capitol had made of her. One more year of trying to convince her brain that it wasn't as screwed up inside as she knew it really was.

Only this year was different. This year she was on their kill list, and she knew it. Even if, in her public ignorance to all the real problems, she was pretty far down on that list. But when she was alone, inhaling the smoke she was burning from her lips, she wished she were at the top. Because then maybe there would be no one else to kill in her place. If she was at the top, they would have knocked off all the people she cared for already and just shot her. And that was what she wanted really, to die so that she didn't have to feel the pain when everyone else would. She could see why Haymitch was so attached to his alcohol. It was the one thing they couldn't easily take from him; the one constant in his life. She supposed she was a constant for him too, but not one that really counted. After all, she'd caused him nothing but grief in her time as an escort, and in turn he had told her out loud everything she was thinking inside her head.

She looked up into the eyes of her captor. All he wanted was information; if she gave him that, she would go free. Only, she didn't have that information. Not that the Capitol cared. She supposed she was here for a different reason. Someone cared about her. Someone they didn't like. She supposed it was Peeta, bless his merciful soul for taking pity on her pathetic mental state, trapped between plastic and insanity.

They showed her images of the tributes, every last one until they took to repeating the same footage over and over and over again like the latest popular song. All she could register was guilt. And the only thing that kept her going day after day was the last part of her brain that could still think clearly. That still told her that it was them who killed those children and not her. The rest of her screamed in agony, though she forced nothing through her lips. She had kept up gilded mask for fifteen years, dancing like a marionette and speaking -No, _living_ - though the scripts they gave her. She figured if it would help her victors, then maybe she could keep it up a little longer.

After four months of imprisonment (the time she only learned later, as she had made no effort to keep track of it), she'd had enough. If it gave her nothing else, the stark gray cell had given her time to come to terms with her regrets and inner demons. After all, most of the Hellhole they had created for her was coming from her own mind. All the love, hate, and grief she had ever felt was coming back to hit her in the head. What better way to show them what she thinks than to stick up her nose at every psychological torture device they throw at her head?

"Trinket?" It was a voice she recognized, though not one she could put to a face. She couldn't place any sounds to names anymore; everything was buried in a heap of dying screams and pleas for mercy. Someone gripped her arm and hefted her to her feet. Before she knew what she was doing, she grabbed the knife from his pocket. She didn't even know the Capitol men carried knives. She had never seen one on them before, but by now she was so screwed up she didn't even care. She wasn't even stable enough to form coherent thoughts, much less deduce identities.

"Don't do anything!" she screamed, because there was nothing left to do. She was done, and she wasn't even sure what 'done' meant anymore. All she had left was a few scraps of reasoning. She pulled the blade to her chest. "You take one step closer, and I'll off myself here and now. I've got nothing left to live for. You took it all away, and now you're going to pay for it. You want information? Well you won't get any from a corpse!"

Slowly, she backed away into the corner, as if its shadows would save her from having to take her own life. But Effie had always been in control, and if she'd lost control over everything else, than manners be damned, she would have control over her death.

"Trinket, don't you know who I am, or has your head finally filled with sawdust?" She stopped. She knew that voice. And now that she thought about it (thinking was an activity she didn't have the energy to resort to more days than not recently), she knew that face and most of all, that teasing smirk that had never cared what the Capitol thought or did. More worn and weathered, but still the same face. And finally, after holding up for four long months, she collapsed into Haymitch's arms.

"I always knew you had some fight in you," he commented, laying a surprisingly gentle hand on her head and smoothing down her hair.

"It's only a game," she whispered shakily into the crook of his neck. "Just a game."

"Maybe it is, but you ain't a pawn anymore, Trinket. You're a queen." A broken, half-mad queen with nothing left to live for. But maybe, just maybe, without all the facades and shrouding smoke of cigarettes and broken bullshit speeches, she was still a queen.

**Read and review? Oh, yeah, and obviously I own nothing, if that wasn't already clear. This might become more than just a single one-shot (more like a bunch of prompt drabbles if you want to give me prompts) if you like it. But I'm not promising regular updates. Just a fic to keep up when all my other creative sparks go on vacation.**


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